The Green Finish on the Portrait
by MegaSilver
Summary: FIRST SEASON. Tommy Oliver, a brand-new Power Ranger, gets to know a few of his new friends-and in the process learns a few things about their friendships, and about friendship in general.
1. The Primary Colors

_**Disclaimer: **_Mighty Morphin Power Rangers_ once again belongs to Saban. (Thank goodness.) So, I'm writing a not-for-profit MMPR Season 1 story because, now that Mickey Mouse is gone, Kitty Kat is a bit redundant, huh? ;) (That's a joke, by the way. I've not stopped with my other saga; I just needed a break from it.)_

_**Continuity:**__ This fic takes place after "The Trouble with Shellshock."_

_**The Green Finish on the Portrait  
><strong>_Part I: The Primary Colors  
><strong>by MegaSilver<strong>

"See you guys!" Tommy waved as Jason and Billy departed the basketball court.

"Later, Tommy!" bade Billy.

Zack and Trini headed off next. "See you tomorrow, guys," Zack bade.

"Bye, Tommy. Bye Kimberly!" said Trini.

"Bye, Trini. Are we still going to the mall after school tomorrow?" asked Kimberly.

"Absolutely!"

Tommy couldn't help but quip, "Just so long as Kim can still move—and Trini's able to stop moving long enough to go into a store." Kimberly let her jaw slack and gave him a playful swat on the arm.

They all laughed for a few seconds. Then Zack said, "Hey, yo, Tommy, you were awesome today. Thanks a million, man. We owe you one. You, Jase, and Trini."

Tommy grinned. "Pleasure was all mine. Man… I tell you what, I've never been through anything like that battle in my life." He sighed. "You know what? I know what Rita's like, and I know her monsters are terrible, but… I gotta say I think I'll actually enjoy myself fighting those things."

"Hey, man, we all do. It's kinda weird at first—Power Morphers, Megazord, Blade Blasters, aliens—but… once you see it as part of what you do from day to day it grows on you."

Tommy couldn't help but be delighted. Most of his life he'd been fairly low-key. He saw a few friends here and there at his karate classes but never really tried or even wanted to get really close to them. But now here he was, suddenly thrust into a group of friends.

And while he'd taught a few karate classes to younger students, he'd never really talked to them about anything but martial arts or exhibited in front of them. But now, suddenly, he was a world-class _hero_.

Trini piped up. "I have to get home quick. See you guys tomorrow?"

"See you!" they all said. And so Zack and Trini went off in different directions, leaving Tommy and Kimberly alone together on the court.

"So, Tommy, where do you live?" asked Kimberly.

"I live on Veracruz Parkway."

"Really?" exclaimed Kimberly. "I live on Santo Angel Drive. It's like halfway to your house right on the path from here!"

"No way! You mind if I walk with you, then?" Tommy asked the question with a cool expression on his face and a cool, ever so slightly flirtatious tone. If only Kimberly could have heard his heart, though, she could have seen that he was anything but cool about stepping into this territory.

To his relief, Kimberly grinned. "Why not?" So they started along the path together. "So, you had a good day?"

Tommy nodded, unable to stop smiling; "Yeah, I did. You know, what you do—I mean, what we do as Power Rangers, I mean, even apart from the whole magic and Morphing and everything, I don't think I'd ever have imagined anyone doing anything so incredibly important."

"Actually… I meant, apart from all that. I mean, the picnic, the basketball, the gang…"

"Oh." Not only had he met a group of friends; he'd met a group conscientious enough to want him to fit in. "Oh, yeah, that was great! You guys are really cool."

Kimberly sighed contentedly. "Well, we try our best."

"Man, though, Billy's a total genius. I mean, he's really nice and he doesn't lord it over anyone but—I feel like a moron just talking to him."

Kimberly rolled her eyes. "Come on, Tommy, how do you think _I_ feel? Ever since I've known him I thought, 'okay, I'm totally destined to be a dumb jock for the rest of my life; better just stick with that.'"

Tommy laughed. "But Billy's not bad at sports, though; you saw him out there on the court! I mean, maybe he's not varsity basketball material but he can definitely hold his own."

Kimberly's eyes went wide. "Oh, yeah, totally! I'm actually kind of amazed, too… if you'd known him as a kid you'd never have imagined he'd turn out to be at all athletic."

This was excellent. "How long have you known him?" Tommy had an in to a topic that he could pretend to talk about casually, but which interested him greatly. He had the impression that Billy and Kimberly were close, but he wanted to find out how close, and whether Billy might be an obstacle if he ended up making a more concentrated move on Kimberly.

"Oh." Kimberly laughed. "Forever! We've been friends since second grade, actually."

"Wow. Really?" That seemed promising in itself, so far as platonic friendship was concerned, but Tommy wanted to know more. "Where'd you meet him?"

"Well, see, I went to a Catholic school for kindergarten in Seattle and then we moved to Angel Grove and I went to Saint Frances Xavier Cabrini for first grade. But it was a new school and then they moved almost clear across town because there were more Catholic families over there and my mom didn't want to drive a half-hour to drop me off, so I started going to a public school. But that meant I had to start taking catechism classes at our parish church in order to take my first Communion at Easter. And… that's where I met Billy." She giggled a little as her eyes shone with that sentimental nostalgia that creeps up when one recalls fond memories.

Tommy wanted to know more. "If—if you don't mind my asking, umm… ahh… then what?"

Kimberly's eyes went wide, but she didn't seem to mind at all. "Oh my gosh, you're gonna think this is so cheesy." She took a deep breath, chuckling. "Okay, so… Billy was _really_ shy back then—he still is kinda shy—and he'd never speak up or raise his hand, but we all knew he was smart because he _always_ got _exactly_ the right answer when Sister Bernadette called on him. Sometimes we'd hang around the parking lot for a few minutes waiting for our parents to come pick us up—Sister Bernadette would give the girls chalk to draw a hopscotsch grid, the boys would play hacky sack, stuff like that. Anyway, Billy never tried to talk to anyone or play with the boys. If you said 'hi,' he'd say hi back, but he seemed to be uncomfortable and no one really tried to go further… he'd go off on his own and survey the trees in the parish garden, take notes on the shrubs or even watch the birds nesting through his binoculars.

"Then one day in February we had a lesson on charity and loving your neighbour and mostly it was about people who needed our help, but then this one girl—I don't remember her name but, she was always like, asking questions and sometimes it got kind of annoying 'cause she was kind of contrary. But anyway, she asked Sister Bernadette, what if we didn't know anyone who needed our help? And then Sister Bernadette said, 'Then you look for someone who does.' And the girl went, like, how do we know if they need it? So Sister Bernadette goes, you look for someone who's lonely, you try to find out if maybe he lost something or someone and whether you can be there and help…

"So back then, I was like, über pious, I always wanted to be that perfect little girl that everyone loves and gives candy to and so when class ended our parents were a few minutes late that day, and I was thinking about what Sister Bernadette said and I saw Billy outside, looking through some shrubs, and I realized he might be lonely and—I took Sister Bernadette literally—wondered if he was looking for something he'd lost, so I went up and talked to him. I asked him if maybe he wanted to come over and play one day, but he was a bit shy. He said he didn't know and—my gosh, it was so sweet the way he was just so honest—he said he really wanted to but he was afraid if the other boys ever found out he went to a girl's house they'd start throwing him in garbage cans or something. I guess I understood it wasn't a totally unreasonable fear… he _was_ kind of little back then. So I asked him if maybe he wanted to play kickball at the park instead, thinking that might be more acceptable for a boy. He said he was no good at kickball and that he hated P.E. So… I said I'd teach him, and that if he were good at a sport he wouldn't be afraid of people beating him up so much.

"SO… on Monday, after school, our mothers took us to Angel Grove Park, and we started making it kind of a regular thing. On days when I didn't have gymnastics practice I'd usually go to the park with Billy after school or catechism and we'd do kickball or gymnastics, and he started to get pretty good, actually. But he absolutely _refused_ to try dance. But he was still pretty small and he never really got beat up but some kids did thrash him around a little from time to time, like…"

"Bulk and Skull?"

Kimberly raised her brow. "Uh-huh," she affirmed disdainfully. She snickered a little bit. "It wasn't too bad for him, though. Bulk and Skull are at least smart enough not to pick on anyone who doesn't look 'weak,' but they've always been too dumb to try to suck up to the 'strong' kids, either, so they're pretty much perennial social pariahs. Nobody can stand them but themselves. So it wasn't like anyone would look down on Billy because Bulk and Skull used him as a target.

"Actually, most kids respected and admired Billy, but they were kind of intimidated by how smart he was, so they didn't really try to approach him… I was almost the only one who would ever ask him for homework help and he was always totally willing to give it and so whenever someone mentioned they had a problem I'd be like, 'Go ask Billy,' but they'd be too scared! And Billy didn't really have the personality to seek out friends deliberately, so for a while he didn't have all that many."

"Wow." Tommy thought about that for a moment. This was just _amazing_. Tommy had never really been shy like Billy, but he'd never had many friends, though mostly because he just hadn't wanted them. He'd never seen the need to have many friends or to open up very much to the few that he had.

But now, he was beginning to think he might have missed out on a lot more than he had suspected. "Except you," he said of Billy's limited circle of friends.

"I guess." Kimberly grinned, looking a little embarrassed. "Well, back then we didn't really play together a _ton_. Maybe once a week, once every other week. We'd see each other at school but we were only in the same class in fourth grade. I had my girl friends and Billy didn't really want to hang out with them, you know—in third grade I invited him to my birthday party and… oh, boy, was _that_ a disaster!"

Kimberly paused for a moment. "No, a couple of girls would tease me about my 'boyfriend' and then I'd be a twerp and avoid him for a few days, but I always felt bad because I really liked hanging out with Billy.

"Anyway, I'm just like, prattling on forever. Took way too long to tell that tale."

Tommy shook his head. "No, Kim, that's a _great_ story! I mean, it's incredibly sweet the way you just went up and made friends with him when it seemed like you had nothing in common but you've stayed friends for what, seven years now? Why on Earth would I think that were cheesy?"

Kimberly sighed. "I dunno… I guess that whole thing about the catechism class—I'm not really super-Catholic nowadays; my family kinda wasn't too good about going to Mass every Sunday pretty soon after my first Communion… sometimes I think I might like to get back into religion but I just don't know where to start." She took a deep breath.

"I see what you mean," said Tommy. "I'm Methodist. We've always gone to church every week but… it's not really something I think a lot about the rest of the week. It's like… I believe it, but when I think about it now, I'm not really sure exactly what it means to me."

"I totally get you."

"But Kim, I mean… what you just told me, that's really something incredible! The way you practiced what you'd learned and you got a really good friend out of it… I mean, that's got to mean a lot to you!"

"Yeah, kinda." Kimberly looked a little uneasy. "You want to know something, though?"

"Of course!" And Tommy meant it.

"I gotta say, about that, I really wish I'd had Sister Bernadette in the sixth grade to remind me what she'd said that day about loving my neighbour."

Tommy frowned. "What do you mean?" Suddenly he became aware that they were standing on the porch of a house unknown to him. Engulfed as he had been in Kimberly's story, he hadn't noticed that they had already reached her house. "Oh… you're home."

Kimberly bit her lip. "Yeah," she said. There was an awkward pause. "Are you… in a hurry to get back home?"

"Uh… not… I mean, I don't want to just—" Tommy was still fascinated by all this but wasn't quite sure how to invite himself for more.

Fortunately, Kimberly opened the door for him. "Want to sit down on the porch swing a minute?"

Relief! "Why not?" So they sat down together and started swinging, taking a few seconds to adjust to a seated position and to admire the beginnings of the mid-southern California dusk.

Tommy rewound to the last bit of information. "So, what were you saying, about Sister…"

"Oh," said Kimberly. "Well… in sixth grade, we started at Angel Grove Junior High, and then things kind of changed. The junior high drew from about four different elementary schools in the city, so social circles got kind of mixed up and blended. And, well… when school started again, I tried out for cheerleading and made the squad, mostly because I'd been doing gymnastics since I was four. But then suddenly, overnight, everyone in school knew my name. And suddenly, the girls started using makeup and perfume, and suddenly, it wasn't the sweet, obedient little girls who were the ones everyone wanted to be like; it was the pretty girls on the cheerleading squad. This one girl on the cheerleading squad, Dana Houston, I don't know why, but she was kind of a 'queen bee'-type; maybe it's because she was the first one in our grade to wear makeup and junior clothes and so we all looked to her to figure out how to fit in with the seventh- and eighth-graders.

"But my gosh, Tommy, she was such a _bitch_. I don't know why she was or how she could have still managed to keep us all bowing down to her, but she was and she did. And the first two weeks of cheerleading she gave subtle hints that she was mistrustful of me—I don't know whether she thought I was going to do something to her on the squad or what.

"And I didn't want to start junior high with a girl who's a teammate _and_ the most influential girl in school antagonized by me, so…" Kimberly took a deep breath. "I turned into a total bitch myself. I started kissing up to her and at first it made me sick but I made myself stop caring.

"She hated Billy. She just loved making fun of all the less pretty girls or the smart kids, and Billy in particular. And I totally left him there in the mud. I never said anything mean to him or about him, but I stopped hanging out with him. When he tried to say hi to me at school I'd make the conversation as short as I could and his old shy self came back and he learned not to try to talk to me. And of course whenever Dana or her friends started making fun of him I never stood up for him. I wouldn't directly make fun of Billy, but if they'd start in on smart kids or 'nerds' or chubby girls in general I'd definitely just join right in."

Kimberly inhaled deeply. "So I wouldn't say we were really friends in sixth and seventh grade." She looked at Tommy and blinked.

Tommy shrugged. "I guess it's hard in junior high, anyway. I mean, my sister's in sixth grade and there were a couple of boys she was friends with, but this school year they stopped having anything to do with each other." He wondered if maybe it was puberty, but at this point he would still have been far too embarrassed to discuss such a matter with the opposite sex.

"Maybe," said Kimberly. She paused. "About the only thing I can say for myself is that I wasn't so low as to ask Billy for homework help for a couple of years. But I knew he would give it if I asked, and not even because he was a doormat—he just really liked helping people on homework, and he'd show me all these cool drawings in math that were just so much more advanced than what we were learning but—the funny thing is, they totally made sense and it really did make the assignment so much more fun!" Kimberly laughed at the memory.

Then she became serious again. "Unfortunately, I can't say Billy was the only friend I lost or almost lost in sixth or seventh grade. I dunno. I guess some things did need to change. But boy, did they ever change fast."

"What changed?"

"It's kind of long."

Tommy shrugged. "If you want to tell it…"

"It's kind of hard."

"Oh." Tommy might have hit that delicate limit with Kimberly. "Well—if you _don't_ want to tell it…" He would have liked to know, but it was obvious that her friends already knew and she wouldn't need his help to deal with the problem.

Still, she seemed willing to open up. "No, I do, actually. I mean… I want you know."

"Okay." Tommy smiled. "Then I want to know."

Kimberly smiled back. "I think one of the reasons I was so anxious about fitting in at school is that my life at home was becoming less and less palatable. My brother Dave and I started noticing obvious signs that things weren't all right between Mom and Dad. Oh, they tried to be good and not fight in front of us, but there was always that tension whenever they were both in the room… and sometimes they'd forget we were there and crack. Or they'd think we couldn't hear and let loose. One night in October in seventh grade I lay awake in bed from 9 to 11 PM listening to them argue. I got really scared something was going to happen.

"I had been planning to put gymnastics on hold when I started cheerleading, but what I did was start practicing gymnastics even more that year. I wanted to spend as much time away from home as possible and stop thinking about those problems. It worked a little bit, but still, when you're 12 years old you can only avoid your parents so much. Then, right at the end of my seventh grade school year, Mom and Dad sat Dave and me down and explained that they were getting divorced."

"Oh." Tommy was a bit shocked. He'd always been somewhat under the impression—based mostly on a few anecdotal and sketchy experiences with some of his classmates in his Karate schools—that children of divorced parents were unstable, unhappy and unfriendly. Yet Kimberly seemed to be none of those. He wouldn't press her further, but he was definitely intrigued by this. "I—I'm sorry. I didn't know."

"No, you couldn't have," said Kimberly. "I hadn't told you.

"But I thought I had it bad; Billy had it even worse. Two weeks before eighth grade started my mom handed me that day's newspaper and pointed to an article in the Obituaries section. Billy's mom had died in a car accident last night." Kimberly blinked a few times, as though fighting back tears.

Tommy's eyes went really wide.

Kimberly read his expression. "I know, right?" she said. "Suddenly I felt really ashamed of myself for everything. I didn't want to go to the funeral; I was afraid to look Billy in the eye, but I knew my mother would go and I knew she expected me to go. And even though I was mad at her and Dad for the divorce I still… I still wanted my mother to approve of me the way I always had since I was really little.

"So I went… and I tried not to look at Billy but I couldn't not notice how alone and forlorn he and his dad were. I later found out that his mother was an adopted only child from Pennsylvania and that his father was a convert to Catholicism and not very close to his family, so apart from Billy's long-distance maternal grandparents, he didn't really have that many people to be there for him."

A tear slipped out and Kimberly quickly brushed it away. "But I didn't talk to him. Not yet. I just kept thinking about how I'd totally abandoned him and my family was broken and my cousins and grandparents were almost all in Maine or Florida and Dana and the girls I hung out with at school were just so completely _not_ filling up that gap…

"Then, something _amazing_ happened." Kimberly stopped for a moment, tucked her legs beneath her on the swing and looked straight at Tommy. Her eyes betrayed her own amazement. "You know… I'm telling you all this and suddenly I'm realizing myself how, I don't think I ever thought about it all at once like this. I don't think I ever realized how much all this has meant, how much it's meant to have the friends I have today and how much having them there got me through my parents' divorce."

"Wow." Tommy couldn't think of any other words. He was completely blown away.

"See… the first day back at school, I was flagged by the principal and asked if I would escort a new eighth-grader who had almost the same schedule as me. It was Trini. And so I spent the day with her and I forgot all about my cheerleader friends—I even forgot to try to find them to sit with them at lunch—because Trini was just so incredible. She was pretty, she was smart—but not verbose like Billy—, she was polite, she was athletic, she was willing to try anything… and then at the end of the day I went to cheerleading practice and seeing Dana and some—not all—of the others I was kind of annoyed. You know why? I wished I were hanging out with Trini and not with them!

"So Trini and I hung out a bit over the next few days, and when I saw how into science and mechanics she was, suddenly I thought of Billy all alone and I thought about how much I missed him and how much he and Trini would just click on this stuff. I still felt kind of ashamed, but now I had an excuse to talk to him again."

She laughed a little. "I remember the day I introduced them to each other. It was Friday on the first week of school. I was a little nervous, I thought, _Oh my gosh, I'm gonna look like a total bitch_, and then I just swallowed it up and said to myself, _You've been a total bitch. There's never gonna be a better time to stop than now._ So we walked up to Billy and I said, 'Hey, Billy, how's it going? Umm… do you know Trini? She's really big on chemistry; she came over yesterday to look at my garden and came up with this _tubular_ nutrient formula. She swears that within a week my flowers will be blushing with color like never before!'

Tommy put a hand over his mouth.

Kimberly laughed, a sheepish expression on her face. "No, seriously, I said that. Word for word, I swear. And the thing that was even funnier—" Kimberly could not stop herself from chortling and chucking as she spoke. "It was hilarious, because, like, when I said that, Trini gasped and looked at me like she was totally shocked, then I realized what I had said and I wanted to disappear, and Billy, oh, poor Billy… well, let's just say that Billy started 'blushing with color like never before'—and dropped all the books he was carrying, and he was totally shaking and you could see it." Kimberly doubled over laughing. "Two girls, one boy—chemistry—flowers—blushing like never before… oh, my gosh, I think Billy and Trini must not over the trauma, 'cause if they were, I'd _definitely_ be hearing about that _all_ the time!"

Tommy was chuckling a fair bit himself. Of course it wasn't as funny for someone who hadn't known Billy for so long, but he could definitely see there was a lot to be amused about in this story.

Kimberly coughed a couple of times and sat up straight again. "Okay. Sorry."

"No, actually, that _is_ really funny."

"Anyway, after that, I was way too embarrassed to try to talk to Billy again. Luckily, Trini got ahead of me. We sat down at our usual table in the cafeteria that day and she called Billy over when she saw him come in. He blushed a little and hesitated—I think he was kind of scared maybe we were in cahoots with Dana to make him look stupid—but we signalled him again and he came over and it was all cool.

"Then he and Trini actually started dating for about three weeks, but it didn't work at all—Billy had no idea what he was doing and Trini didn't like calling all the shots after a while." Kimberly brushed a strand of hair out of her face. "Pretty predictable junior high romance story.

"So… yeah, that's how I became friends with Trini and re-became friends with Billy. 'Course, Dana tried a bit to make my life—and Trini's—hell now that she had the pretext of our hanging out with Billy, but you know what was funny? When _I_ stopped kissing up to her, a couple of other girls on the squad stopped kissing up to her, too. Sure, she still had her little clique who wouldn't—or couldn't—see her for what she was, but as the months wore on you could tell the average girl in the halls was less enamoured of her.

"Plus, two _more_ amazing things happened. Number one, Billy became friends with Jason and Zack—and once _that_ happened, only Bulk and Skull were stupid enough to pick on Billy and even then, only if Jason weren't around—, and number two, at the end of the first semester, Dana's father got arrested for money laundering and had to plea-bargain his way out. The family was bankrupted with a massive fine and had to move to Michigan. And once _that_ happened…" Kimberly shook her head. "Tommy, now that I think about it, it's _unbelievable_. The cheer squad was just a totally different place. Even Dana's former friends who'd been kind of nasty all along were just so much more… _chill_."

This sort of early adolescent dynamic puzzled Tommy and Kimberly, for the moment. What they did not know—not yet, at least—was that that was actually a fairly typical consequence of the removal of a sociopath's negative energy from a circle. Dana _was_ in fact a sociopath, charming and domineering but literally incapable of feeling empathy with those whom she crushed to achieve her goals. Her move to Michigan and from the lives of quite a few of the girls on the Angel Grove Junior High School cheerleading squad had thus been a Godsend for them—and a terrible affliction for a number of girls and eventually boys in her new school.

But the psychology of the junior high female on such a formal level was of little interest to Tommy now. For what had begun as an inquiry into the nature of Kimberly's relationship with Billy—and by now it was increasingly obvious that this nature was strictly platonic and even borderline fraternal, at so far as Kimberly was concerned—had blossomed into a sort of catechization in the history and substance of the bonds that formed the group. Though Tommy had known that this was a tight-knit group, he had never really thought about what that meant or how it might have become that way.

And he was beginning to see Kimberly as a profoundly appealing person. Sure, he'd found her quite attractive from the start, but she wasn't the first "mall girl"-type who had ever expressed interest in him and he'd always been wary of them: they seemed obsessed with their image and with the amassing of irritating and superficial friendships to bolster that image. But Kimberly's popularity, constructed as it seemed to have been around a sort of heroine role—as a sort of angelic figure having taken the first step to lead the school out of Dana's grip—now appeared to him genuine, deep-seated and well-merited.

Tommy longed to know more, and he was searching for the best words to ask how Jason and Zack had come into the picture and fleshed out the social network that had seen Kimberly and Billy through what might have been turbulent junior high experiences. However, he was interrupted by a woman's voice from inside the house.

"Kimberly? Are you home? It's time for dinner!"

"I'm here; I'm coming!" called Kimberly. She looked into Tommy's eyes and frowned wistfully. "I have to go."

"Yeah, me too." Getting up and stretching a little, he glanced at his watch. Six-fifteen P.M. "Aww, man… I'm late! My grandparents were driving up from L.A. and my mom said to be back at six P.M. sharp for dinner!"

"Oops." Kimberly gritted her teeth. "Sorry."

Tommy sighed happily. The lecture his mother was sure to feed him—the next in a long series of such lectures—about punctuality would be well worth the time spent getting to know Kimberly—and through her, the entire group. "Hey, don't be. Best walk home I've ever had."

"Thanks for walking with me."

"Thanks for talking with me."

Kimberly shrugged. "Or _to_ you, rather. Thanks for listening."

"It was fascinating." And Tommy truly meant that.

Kimberly blinked. "So, next time I talk to you, you can tell me all about your friends," she grinned.

Tommy wondered whether he should say that Kimberly quite clearly knew far more about "his friends" than he did, but at that moment Kimberly's mother's voice cut into the atmosphere once again. "_Kimberly_!"

"Coming!" She inhaled and exhaled deeply. "See you at school tomorrow?"

"You bet. 'Night."

"'Night!"

* * *

><p>Peacefully under his bed covers, Tommy stared at the ceiling and smiled.<p>

_What an amazing day._

The heroes, the friends, the walk home…

And Kimberly at the center of it all. Kimberly happy to spend time with him.

A million questions might he ask himself right now. Would Kimberly really be interested in him or did she see him the way she saw Billy—just a recipient of kindness and friendship? Would he screw up these friendships? Was he capable of being friends with such _good friends_ when he'd never really even tried being a good friend to anyone? Would they think he couldn't and not even give him the chance to prove himself a good friend? What if some tragedy struck the Ranger team? Could he keep on pretending he knew what he was doing as a Power Ranger and as their friend until he at last did in fact know what he was doing?

Tommy shrugged all those anxieties right off. He wasn't interested in answering those questions right now. All he knew was that he wanted all this to continue: Kimberly, the team, the friendships… There was so much more to know, and he wanted to have enough time to know it all.

He wanted this to continue. He wanted to talk with Kimberly again, to walk beside her again, to go off somewhere without the others. He wanted to fight once more alongside the others, help them save the world again, help save his friends again. He wanted his friends to stay his friends, to share not simply the fight but life and all its triumphs and tragedies.

For the first time, Tommy realized how much he wanted people in his life. Moreover, he knew _which_ people he wanted in his life.

So he shoved out all his doubts about the future and lulled himself to a peaceful sleep in the confidence that, for the moment, the people he wanted in his life were indeed there.

**TO BE CONTINUED…**


	2. The Roses among the Leaves

_**Continuity:**__ This part takes place the day after "Gung Ho."_

_**The Green Finish on the Portrait  
><strong>_Part II: The Roses among the Leaves  
><strong>by MegaSilver<strong>

Jason and Tommy took to the gym floor at Ernie's after school. "Those guys were definitely stronger than we were," remarked Jason, referring to their adversaries in the Teen Ninja Finals the previous day.

"And more advanced," added Tommy. "I'm still a bit stiff in the legs and torso."

"Yeah, me, too. But we really did well," said Jason. "You know what? I'd say that whole Titanus ordeal saved us the competition. I'm really glad we had to go through that. There was no way those hired mercenaries could match our team chemistry after that."

"Whoa, you got that right." Tommy was a fourth-degree black belt in Karate, but never had he really made a protracted effort at serious team sport when it wasn't a stringent requirement in a class. "You know what, though? I was actually pretty surprised Bulk and Skull would go so far as to try to put together some sort of WMAC-like franchise!"

"Well, those two are always feeding delusions of grandeur… but I was pretty surprised too at how close they actually got to succeeding this time." Jason grinned mischievously. "Too bad for them that in competition sport, 'almost' just isn't good enough."

"Yeah, well, you know what they say. The higher the monkey climbs, the better the world sees his ass!"

Jason laughed out loud at that one. "Tommy, that's a _great_ one! That definitely sums up every single day in the lives of Bulk and Skull!"

"Aww, poor guys. You almost gotta feel bad for 'em. All they want's a little high living!"

Still laughing, Jason took his stance and the pair began sparring.

* * *

><p>A little over an hour later, their workout terminated, Jason and Tommy headed to the bar for some fresh food. "Man," sighed Jason, "I'm itching for a big fat double cheeseburger, fries and chocolate shake, but I know that'll offset everything we just did."<p>

Tommy shrugged. "Hey, why not? I mean, look what we did yesterday! We can celebrate a bit. Well, maybe we don't need the chocolate shakes but c'mon, are cheeseburgers so bad?"

Smiling, Jason nodded. "I like your way of thinking!"

Ten minutes later, the duo seated themselves with their cheeseburgers, fries and mango smoothies. "To the Teen Ninjas!" Jason held up his glass.

"To the Teen Ninjas!" Tommy concurred, clanking his glass against Jason's.

"I've gotta say, even though we had our little problems at first, I was really psyched the whole time we were training for the finals," remarked Jason. "Ever since I moved to Angel Grove I've had a terrible time finding someone my age and my level to work with. Sometimes I work out with Zack or Trini a bit, but they do different styles and they're not really as serious about martial arts.

Tommy raised a brow. "Wow, I guess I really lucked out meeting you right away like I did." He sipped the sweet smoothie. "All those years training in Los Angeles I never had to bat an eye if I needed a sparring partner, whatever style, whatever level… anything."

Jason's eyes went wide. "You're from L.A.?"

"Yeah. I didn't tell you?"

"No, I don't think I'd ever gotten the chance to ask! I'm from L.A., too?"

"Really?" exclaimed Tommy. "No kidding! What part of L.A.? When did you come to Angel Grove?"

"I grew up in Reseda. We moved here the summer before seventh grade."

"No!" Tommy shook his head. "You're lying! We lived in Reseda until I was seven years old!

"Seriously?"

"Yeah! You know Sensei Kentaro at the Double Dragon Dojo?"

Jason nodded, looking amazed. "I trained with him from the summer after kindergarten right up until we left L.A.!"

Tommy could scarcely believe his ears. "Aww, man. You're not gonna believe this. I trained there at the beginning of first grade until we moved. You and I must've been in the same class!"

Jason shook his head. "Incredible! How is it we didn't recognize each other before?"

"Well, it was a pretty big group," Tommy remembered. That and he hadn't made much of an effort to make friends from that group.

Jason was still shaking his head. "Unbelievable!"

"So, ahh… what brought you guys to Angel Grove?"

Jason was silent for a moment. "Better take another bite of this first," he said, chomping into his cheeseburger and chewing down before explaining. "We moved to get a fresh start. See, my dad was an officer in the U.S. Army and after he got married in 1970 he was stationed mostly in Japan. He did a brief tour in Vietnam…."

"Whoa."

"It wasn't quite as bad for him as it was for those privates in the jungle," Jason qualified. "But it was a real strain on my parents and on their marriage.

"Then my mom got pregnant with my sister Tamara in 1973 and they decided they didn't want to raise their family overseas, so my dad took a position at the recruiting office in L.A. He's a native Angelino, so we were close to his parents. But it didn't really make our lives easy. My parents had both started drinking—a _lot_—when they lived overseas and they didn't stop after my sister was born, or after I was born a few years later."

"Whoa," Tommy echoed himself. "I'm sorry. That's rough."

"No, you know, it turned out okay in the end. I mean, yeah, it was hard, but I eventually got to know other kids who had it harder. At least our parents never beat on us and our dad held down his job." Jason took the last bite of his burger, washed it down with a gulp of his smoothie and leaned back a little. "I wouldn't even say they were all that bad of parents. They just weren't… _there_ that often.

He sighed. "My mom got a DUI when I was in sixth grade. Actually, she had a car accident. Luckily, the other driver wasn't hurt but—finding out your mother just got arrested at that age, it's a nightmare. Then word got out, I started feeling people looking at me when I went down the hallways at school…

"But it was a good thing, though: it woke them up to this problem that they'd been ignoring for almost twenty years. They started getting help for their problems and since my sister had just graduated they decided they wanted a fresh start, so my dad found another job and we moved on up here. I think they also knew that my sister hadn't had great friends in our local schools and she turned out just a little… off. They didn't want the same thing to happen to me."

"Do you think it would have?"

Jason shrugged. "Back then I liked to pride myself on being the 'good man' among my friends, but they weren't exactly a positive influence. My parents knew some of their parents and those people were real wackos. Heck, even despite my parents' problems they knew well enough to let me have friends over but not let me go over to friends' houses. But I guess you can only do that with your kids for so long. Especially when they know that you're not exactly practicing what you preach."

Tommy nodded. "Us, we lived in North Hollywood after we moved out of Reseda and the elementary schools were okay, but when I got to middle school and high school they absorbed some rougher kids from the nearby schools and I started facing some pretty rough characters." He smirked a bit. "That didn't bother me. I just went to school and didn't talk to that many people. If something happened I knew I could hold my own, but my brother and sister…"

Tommy finished his last French fry before continuing. "That was the real problem. My sister at least takes Karate lessons, but they're both a bit smaller than I am—see, I'm adopted."

"Oh, really?"

"Yeah. My sister's in sixth grade this year and my parents hadn't really noticed when I went there but there were some real weirdos in that school. So it was private school and a commute in L.A. traffic—which my mom didn't want—or move to Burbank—which my dad didn't want—or move to a more affluent neighborhood—and from an affordability standpoint that's getting less and less possible in L.A. So, they decided to leave the city. My dad's a mechanical engineer and my mom's a paralegal—there's always some sort of posts for those, so as soon as my dad found a job in Angel Grove, Stone Canyon or San Diego we packed up and left."

"And you like it here?"

"Yeah, I think I could end up liking it." Tommy smiled. "How about you?"

"Honestly? I don't know what I'd do without my friends."

Jason had cited exactly the reason why Tommy thought he might, eventually, be truly happy in Angel Grove. "Yeah, you guys seem pretty tight." He gulped down the last of his smoothie. "How did you meet them?"

"Well, I met Zack first, in seventh grade; we went to Redwood Middle School together. I tell you, he was a character: he'd come here just that year himself, from Virginia, but he was just really cool about everything: he'd go up to random people from the first week shaking their hands and saying 'Hey, how are you doing? I'm Zack; I'm new here!"—you know, just start a conversation. It surprised people but they really got into it.

"That year he kind of just floated around from group to group—got invited to a lot of parties and stuff—so we hung out a few times but not really regularly. I wouldn't say he was 'class clown,' but every now and then his sense of humor would surface inappropriately in class, for sure."

Tommy could definitely see that.

Jason continued: "After seventh grade, the school district redrew the boundaries and a few kids got moved to Angel Grove Junior High. And that's when we met Billy, Trini and Kim."

Jason smiled as he reminisced. "I had my first and second periods with Zack, and I didn't really know anyone else, so I hung out with him a lot that first week—and we lived near each other, so we rode bikes home together and stuff. He found out I was really into Karate and so we sparred together on Wednesday…" Jason paused, looked around, and leaned in to whisper to Tommy. "Don't tell him I told you this, but I'd say I really owned his ass that day."

Tommy snickered.

"So he said, 'All right, man: now you gotta try _my_ game!' So on Thursday he introduced me to the 'Hip Hop Kido.'"

"Ah… so THAT'S what that's called!" observed Tommy. He'd always wondered what to make of what looked like his Black Ranger teammate's proclivity for martial dance.

"Yeah, Zack's family moved out of D.C. when he was little but his cousins still lived in D.C. and not in the best neighborhood—and the family was really tight-knit, so Zack's parents didn't want him not to visit with them but they were worried about his safety playing outside with his cousins and so they made him take martial arts lessons starting at age four…" Jason chuckled. "Then when he played with a couple of his cousins, they'd ask him to show them some of his moves… and his cousins, well, they learned hip-hop dance from their neighbors and taught it to Zack, and then one day he just got the idea to blend Karate and hip-hop and it just stuck."

Tommy laughed. "I can definitely see that!"

"Well, anyway… I'd never really liked hip hop music that much—I've always been more into rock—but when you start to see it applied like that you get to appreciate it more. Now he's got me hooked!"

Tommy nodded. There was silence for a moment. Then: "Did you meet the others right away?"

"Umm, almost right away, actually. We had our first-period English class with Billy and the first day of the second week, I was sitting one seat ahead of Zack and chatting with him when suddenly Billy walks by and Zack goes, 'Yo, ladies' man!'

"Then Billy jumped a little, looked around and caught Zack grinning at him and pointed at his own chest like he wanted to say, 'Huh? Me?'

"So Zack says, 'Yeah, c'mon, don't be modest! I saw you in the cafeteria Friday, surrounded by all those pretty girls!' And I was a bit surprised myself; I hadn't noticed Billy at all up to that point. Then Zack says, 'Hey, what's up, I'm Zack; this right here's my buddy, Jason.'

"I said hi myself, then Zack told him to sit down with us and said, 'So you got a name or do I just call you ladies' man?'

"So, that broke the ice; Billy relaxed a little and introduced himself. Zack asked him, 'So, what do you think of Mrs. Necker?'—that was our English teacher.

"Billy grimaced a little, then he leaned in and said real quietly, 'Well, ah, to be totally honest I'm not sure her affinity for poststructuralist analysis is a highly appropriate fixation for a late-primary school-level module on literature and composition.'

"That brought down the house. Zack and I were both breathtaken. Then Zack said, 'Whoa, dude! I'm gonna write that one down!' So he takes a pen and asks Billy to repeat, then he shows me the paper and says, 'Check it out!' Man, I know I'd never have remembered what Billy said to tell you if Zack hadn't written it all down like that.

"And of course he asks Billy, 'So is that how you got those girls? Dude, that is _sweet_ vocabulary there!'

"So I have no idea what to say, Billy has no idea what to say; we look at each other, both wide-eyed; I shrug…

"Then at lunch time I meet up with Zack at the cafeteria entrance and he notices Billy coming in and says, 'Yo, Billy! Hey, don't worry; I'll call you Billy from now on.'

"Billy laughs a little and says, 'Thanks!'

"So Zack says, 'Hey, you want to sit with us?' And before Billy can answer, he's distracted by a couple of girls across the cafeteria; Zack and I look and there's one that's waving towards him and another signalling for him to come over, and then Zack says, 'Ahhhhhhhhhh. I see! You know, it's gonna be really hard for me not to call you "ladies' man" at the rate you're going.'

"Then I say, 'You usually sit with them?'

"And before Billy can answer, Zack says, 'Cool! Let's all go and you introduce us!'

"So I say, 'You want to sit at a _girls'_ table?' I hadn't really started looking at girls all that seriously yet and the ones in our classes usually annoyed me still.

"But Zack… well, I think he was an adolescent starting at age ten or something," Jason chuckled. "So he prods me and he says, 'Yeah, c'mon! That table's a totally untapped resource, right there!' So, we all went; the girls looked a little surprised—maybe a bit uneasy—but actually we had a really good lunch all together and so we sat together the next day… and the next… and then it just started to become a habit."

Tommy thought about that. This story amazed him more and more the more details he heard. But there was something else he wanted to know. "So, what did you think of Kim and Trini?" Actually, he was a little more interested to know what Jason had thought about Kimberly, but he wasn't sure he wanted to reveal himself quite just yet.

Jason cleared his throat. "I really liked them. You know, Kim told me she was a cheerleader and I thought she'd be just another stupid Valley Girl-type… 'course, you and I know what they're like; we grew up in the San Fernando Valley!"

"For sure!"

"But that first day—you know, it's a good thing Trini was there, because I think I'd have given up trying to be friends with Billy if she hadn't been around to interpret him for us almost right away. I realized he was human after all—kind of hard to access, but a really good guy if you'd stick with him a bit. Of course, Zack was just fascinated by Billy.

"Trini and Billy really clicked… you know, they dated for a little bit, but nothing really lasts that long in junior high school and I think they both didn't want to ruin their friendship. Plus, there was…" Jason trailed off.

"What?" asked Tommy. He suspected that Jason had been going to say that Billy was covering a crush on Kimberly, a suspicion more or less confirmed by Jason's quick subject shift.

"Never mind," said Jason, obviously not wanting to share some sort of secret. Tommy wanted to pry, but he always found it annoying when people did, so he laid off.

"But yeah," Jason continued. "Kimberly, well… I saw that she was friends with people like Billy and Trini and I realized there was no way she could be just a dumb mall girl. But I think she was glad that Zack and I came along—we're more on her level academically and she was glad to find some people who weren't stupid but who didn't make her _feel_ stupid, even unintentionally.

"A couple of the girls on her cheerleading squad were _real_ airheads. Luckily the worst one left. But Kimberly… well, when I found out about her gymnastics I could see she was doing cheerleading because she liked the sport and was _really_ good at it, not just for the attention like most of the other girls were. And everyone liked her—well, except for that rotten girl on the squad, who didn't like anyone who didn't worship her—because she was really good-hearted. She impressed me a lot."

Jason paused for a moment. "Bulk and Skull certainly like her. 'Course, they never really understood how to charm a girl. But neither did any of the other guys who were into her. I remember one time in November that year, Kim came up to me and said, 'Hey Jase, you know Reginald McDonald? He asked me out last period. I didn't answer; I don't know what to say… I just…' She hesitated. 'I don't want to say he's a "dork" but I don't… what do you think I should say?'

"But I remembered had a class with Reginald that afternoon, so I said, 'Hey, look: just let it go. Just try not to think about it. It'll be okay by the end of the day. All right?"

"And she goes, 'Jason, what—?'

"So I say, 'Trust me.' So I managed to start a conversation with Reginald before class, and knowing I was friends with Kim, he asked about her and I told him she had a boyfriend." Jason inhaled deeply. "Which was a fib, but I told myself that if in my head I said 'boy space friend' and he heard 'boyfriend' as just one word, I'd be off the hook."

Tommy laughed. This was kind of a relief to hear: Jason as a brother-like figure, a protector of Kimberly, but trusting Tommy enough to let him know the truth. "You have a sister, though, you said, don't you?"

"I do." Jason raised his eyebrows. "She and her boyfriend are driving over from Las Vegas for dinner tonight. I think…" He looked around and leaned in closely. "Don't tell any of the guys, 'cause I don't want this to get back to my parents, but… she told me on the phone last night she's pregnant, and I think her boyfriend's gonna ask our parents for permission to marry her."

"Wow." Tommy flinched a little. "What do you think of him?"

Jason shrugged. "I don't know him too well. I only know he's a plumber's apprentice—so he'll have an decent job—and that he got my sister pregnant." He took a deep breath. "I really worry about her sometimes. She had a bit of a rough time in high school what with our parents and all… she and her friends were kind of wild and like I said, most of their parents were worse than ours, so they didn't exactly help her want to 'do as they say, not as they do.'"

"Yeah, but at least she talks to you and trusts you," offered Tommy. "At least, I think she does."

"No, that's true," agreed Jason. "She finished high school the year after the accident. She was really mad at our parents for moving out of L.A. and she didn't want to leave her friends, so she stayed with our grandparents for her senior year. But I think they knew the other girls in her group were bad news, because they told her she had to leave after she graduated and that they would help her move only if she left L.A. She was pretty shocked, but pretty quickly she realized there was no way any of her friends would be able to help her find acceptable living situations, so she took up our grandparents' offer and left the state."

Jason sighed. "So, she's been in Las Vegas ever since. At least she's held down the same job as a bartender for a year and a half now. She started calling me to talk more often: I think she wanted to make sure I wouldn't do the same stuff she did in high school."

Tommy nodded. "I worry about my sister Roxanne sometimes," he admitted. "I could look after her when she was in kindergarten, first and second grade, but then I left for middle school—and then the first day of high school I realized that she was going to be going to that same place and I wasn't going to be there and wasn't like elementary school. I went with her, dropped her off and picked her up afterwards, tried to make sure everyone in the school saw that this little girl had a big brother.

"About a month of that and my parents sat all of us down and said, 'This can't go on.'"

"Didn't you say you had a brother?"

"Yeah, Clement. He's in fourth grade. He's a good kid: doesn't do Karate, but he's really involved with Scouting." Tommy shrugged. "Wasn't really my thing; my dad kind of made me do Cub Scouts in second grade, but I didn't really care for the kids in my den and I knew my Uncle John would always let me go up to his house to go boating or hiking or whatever. But Clement really loves it. Seems like he's found a pretty good group here, too—we were worried about that."

"I did Cub Scouts all the way through Arrow of Light," remarked Jason. "But then I started to want to get more serious about Karate and more into competition, so I had to choose time- and money-wise." He thought for a moment. "I'm glad I did it, but I don't exactly regret stopping."

"I definitely don't," said Tommy. Although, now, he wasn't too sure. Maybe he'd missed out a bit on having adventures with other kids outside his family.

But he sure wasn't missing out now.

Jason rewound the subject a bit. "I don't have any brothers and I'm the younger child. Billy… you know, we're the same age but I've kind of always seen him as a little brother. Even after he grew… pretty big starting the middle of eighth grade. When I first met him, his mother had died in a car accident just a few weeks earlier… I wondered if maybe that was why he was so quiet, but Kim told me he'd always been kind of shy.

"In a funny way, though, I think it turned out well for him because he just happened to fall in with a few friends right after his mother's death and—well, from what I've heard she was a much more attentive mother than mine was for most of my life—and she couldn't be there for him when he got home from school anymore, so he was more willing to open up to other people 'cause he needed to."

* * *

><p>Jason's thoughts drifted back to one day late in September. Zack had been out sick and they had had a substitute teacher in English, who had dismissed the class early.<p>

_Out in the hall, Jason asked, "So, you went over to Trini's last night?" Billy and Trini had "officially" started "dating" about a week earlier._

"_Well…" Billy blushed. "Affirmative." He smiled, his lip quivering just a little. "She attempted to transmit to me her advanced stir-fry techniques, but I wouldn't say the finished ensemble was exactly comestible. My dad can't cook, either. Luckily he's hired a chef."_

"_A chef?"_

"_Well, since…" Billy swallowed a little. "Since my mother died we've been relying on pre-prepared freeze-preserved alimentation to a rather unhealthy degree."_

_With concentration, Jason would have figured out what Billy had just said about his diet after a minute or so, but the bit about Billy's mother overrode anything else. He wondered if maybe he should ask about it._

"_Do you miss her?"_

_Billy paused for a while. "I do," he said finally. "Kind of." He paused again. "A lot, actually. I've always preferred solitary recreation, but—I always knew I could at least fall back on my parents, just in case… I wouldn't have to face the world all alone. And Mom was home all day, so I could seek moral support at any precise moment. And now…"_

_Billy didn't tear up or shake and his voice didn't crack, but Jason could sense the profound fear and heartbreak within. He could see that Billy felt weak, but suspected his classmate might be stronger than he gave himself credit for._

_Following Jason's lead, the pair took a seat on the nearby staircase. Jason put a hand on Billy's shoulder. "Look, man, there's a reason why people make friends. Parents can't always be there to understand. But if you need help or anything, you can talk to me. Anytime."_

Naturally, that story would have been too intimate to tell someone without Billy's permission, so Jason didn't. Instead, he searched for an anecdote to lead into a cheerier tone.

"I'll tell you… the first time we all went over to Billy's house, the five of us, it was the day after Thanksgiving in eighth grade. Kim hadn't been over there in years and none of us had ever been, and we saw what he'd done to his garage and his attic, with the mechanical, electronic and chemical equipment and the VW Bug that he was working on and everything and I was just… I thought, _Holy smoke!_ I knew Billy was a genius, but I had no idea he was so technically… _cultured_. We were all just blown away… we were gonna watch a movie on TV but we ended up spending the whole afternoon having him show us around and demonstrate experiments and gadgets and stuff.

"And, well… since then, that's become our main hangout—I mean, after the Juice Bar—since it's pretty nicely-sized and it's only Billy and his dad there."

Tommy looked fascinated. "Billy's got like a whole tech station at his house?" At Jason's nod, he remarked, "Wow, that's awesome! I want to see it!"

"Oh, you will. Yeah, we should do a movie night or something this weekend… be your initiation to the place." Jason grinned. "Soon as I get home, I'm gonna call Billy, see if I can't drop a subtle hint that he needs to invite us over. Hey: you know what? You haven't even seen the RADBUG yet!"

"The RADBUG? What's…?"

Jason didn't answer. He just smiled. "Oh, we'll give you a demonstration." Boy, would they ever.

* * *

><p>As the pair left the Youth Center a few minutes later, Jason just glided out casually, his thoughts focused on calling Billy, finishing his biology essay and getting to bed before ten. It was just another typical week in his life, not too far off from that of his four best friends'.<p>

Tommy, however, walked out in a sort of trance, awed at what he would be able to count among the happenings of this week…

… fighting Titanus, winning the Team Ninja Finals and exploring Billy's lab and the RADBUG—whatever that was. If it was something he did with his fellow Rangers, he was sure the tempo would be fast and furious.

A tempo he was scarcely used to—outside the context of individual dojo sessions, that is—but one that was quickly growing on him. Someday soon he'd be able to say of that tempo, "Just the way I like it!"

**TO BE CONTINUED…**


	3. Accentuated Edges

_**Continuity:**__ This part takes place the day after "Island of Illusion, part II."_

_**The Green Finish on the Portrait  
><strong>_Part III: Accentuated Edges  
><strong>by MegaSilver<strong>

"Ha!" said Tommy, finishing his dance in a Karate pose.

"Nice one!" Zack snickered. "Man, you picked this up way faster than Jason!"

Tommy shrugged. "Well, you started off teaching me plain old break dancing and all I could think of was how a Karate move would slide in and combine." He rolled his eyes, chuckling. "I guess I ought to find some other hobbies, huh?"

"Hey, you know what's funny? I had the same thing happen—only me, it was, I grew up with my cousins teaching me hip-hop dancing, and when I started taking Karate when I was eleven, every class the first few weeks I'd have to do extra sit-ups because I kept dancing. It's like, I could only see dance moves underneath all the techniques! Then, after I moved up to my purple belt, it hit me: maybe that was what was missing in the world! So that's when I invented the Hip-Hop Kido." He glanced up at the clock. "Hey, you ready to go meet the guys over at Billy's?"

It was Friday night, and the team was planning on a little fiesta to mark the weekend. Hopefully Rita would stay quiet.

"I gotta say, that was pretty fun," remarked Tommy as the pair headed out of the Juice Bar and onto the streets. "Plus, with the music, you get a sort of rhythm and it just synthesizes your concentration with the environment in a way I've just never felt before." Tommy thought that might be a good thing, but a part of him wondered if it would make him lazy and unfocused if he got too used to having such a metronomic support.

"Yeah, and you know what's really cool? If you ever manage to teach a girl how to Hip Hop Kido, you can practice dancing with her pretending like it's just sparring—and then you ask her to the dance!"

Tommy laughed. His thoughts wandered off for a moment as he contemplated whether that would ever work on Kimberly…

Zack must have seen the twinkle in Tommy's eye, because he continued, "So, three weeks before the harvest festival dance… if I can get Kimberly trained in one week, will that give you enough time to work up the courage to ask her?"

Tommy flinched a little, surprised at how clearly Zack had read his mind. "Whoa… ah… umm… I don't… I… I hadn't… I mean, I don't know… I-I hadn't thought about…"

"Aww, c'mon, man." Zack slapped Tommy on the shoulder. "I haven't known you that long, but this is totally not like you, stammering like this! C'mon, it's obvious there's something between you two."

"Y-you think so?" Tommy kept hoping and thinking there was, but he was definitely new to the dating game.

"Yeah, man! Look, all I can say is this: if Angela looked at me flirted with me the way Kim looks at you and flirts with you, I wouldn't be having pizza tonight with y'all: I'd be sipping shakes with my girl!"

Tommy chuckled a little, unsure of what to say. "Wow."

"So this dance, I'm tellin' you… it's not really much of a 'date' thing like Homecoming or any of that, but still a few couples. No reason not to ask her—and no reason not to make _this_ your first move!"

Tommy took a deep breath and nodded. "Yeah, I guess you're right."

"You _guess_?"

"You're right! All right?"

"I know I'm right!" Zack bounced his eyebrows. "So, you gonna do it?"

"Yes."

"What are you gonna do?"

"Ask Kimberly to the dance."

"When are you gonna ask her?"

"Umm…" Tommy had definitely been caught off guard. "Uh, weren't you gonna teach her Hip-Hop Kido first?" As soon as he said it he felt stupid.

"Dude, that was a _joke_! That's not the kind of dance she'll want to dance with _you_!"

"I know!" Tommy couldn't restrain himself from showing a constant, embarrassed grin. "But look, I can't just ask her this weekend; we're all gonna be together. Let's just stay cool for a few days, relax."

"All right, but you gotta get your guard back up soon as we hit school again on Monday!" Zack advised.

"Understood." Tommy exhaled, relieved to have resigned himself to procrastinating for a couple of days. Still, there was one thing he wanted to make sure of first. "You don't think she'd be going with Jason or Billy, though, do you?"

"Jase? Billy? Nah, no way! Definitely not." Zack paused for a moment. "She did like Jason a bit, at the beginning of eighth grade, but he wasn't really into dating just yet and nothing ever came out of it. Billy, though…" Zack nodded. "I think Billy kind of likes her, but he'll never admit it."

"Why not?"

"Too shy. Plus I think he sees her as one of those alpha-female types and he has it in his mind that he'll never have a chance with a girl like her."

Tommy pressed on. "Think he's right?"

Zack shrugged. "I don't know. I kind of think Billy sells himself a bit short, but Kim definitely doesn't think of Billy as having a crush on her. You know they've known each other since elementary school, too—I think she still kind of sees him as the little boy who was her one guy friend among the girls back then. Maybe if they both went away and got back together years later…" Zack's voice trailed off. "But nah, for all practical intents and purposes, no way she'll be dating Jason or Billy. Look, the iron's hot for _you_—it's right there for you to strike it!"

"I know! We said that already!"

"Yeah, but you can't forget, man! Let me put it this way: I won't _let_ you forget."

Tommy nodded as they approached the driveway of Billy's house. "Thanks."

"Hey, what are friends for?" Zack offered a hand, and they slapped palms and shook with mighty force. "So, we talk your game plan on Monday?"

"Monday."

"_Monday_." Zack was insistent.

Tommy sighed contentedly as they waved to the girls approaching in the distance. "Monday." Nothing had gone at all like he had expected since the move to Angel Grove. But all of it had been grander than he could ever have imagined.

As they all entered their friend's house now, Tommy wondered just how this incredible story would continue to unfold.

**THE END**

_**Author's Note:**__ Well, I know this was a lot shorter than the others, but I don't think Tommy's friendship was ever quite so profound into-the-soul with Zack as it became with Kimberly and with Jason. Plus, in terms of the stories to reveal to Tommy, those two had already told him most of what was interesting. And no, I'm not going to write chapters with such discussions between Tommy and Billy or between Tommy and Trini, because he does not seem to have ever been particularly close to either of them (eventually he and Billy would be closer, but almost strictly in the capacity of the Power Team) and I can't see such conversations taking place. In an alternate timeline or in the far future, perhaps, but those are not the aims of these little pieces._

_In any case, thank you so much to everyone who has read and reviewed! This particular story is very meaningful for me—I've injected a lot of my own experiences and emotions with faith, family and friends into the characters here and I hope some of you will find it speaks to you, as well._


End file.
